The KEK Artist in Residence 2025 (KEK AiR 2025) program will take place from Friday, April 18, to Friday, May 16, as part of the biennial Tsukuba Science Hackathon 2025, organized by Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. During their stay at KEK, artists will collaborate with researchers and students, exchanging ideas and creating new works. This year’s participating artists, Junya Kataoka + Rie Iwatake—an art unit commissioned by Tsukuba City—will explore the theme of “Universe.”
Through the KEK AiR 2025 program, KEK aims to foster mutual inspiration between researchers and artists. This initiative encourages researchers to gain fresh perspectives on science and technology while providing artists with new opportunities for creative expression. By presenting particle physics—often viewed as abstract and complex—through the lens of art, the program seeks to make this field more engaging and accessible to a broader audience.
The completed works will be exhibited at the Tsukuba Media Art Festival 2025, held at the Tsukuba Museum of Art from Friday, August 1, to Monday, August 11 (a national holiday). They will also be featured in “Entangled Moments – [Quantum, Sea, Space] x Art,” an exhibition organized by the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology at Expo 2025 Kansai in Osaka from Thursday, August 14, to Wednesday, August 20.
Junya Kataoka + Rie Iwatake, resident Artists, both completed their Master’s degrees in Art at the University of Tsukuba in 2010. Following their participation in an artist residency in Paris in 2013, they began working together as an art unit, focusing on installation-based works. Their artistic practice combines kinetic sculptures, which recreate subtle everyday moments through simple physical phenomena, with two-dimensional works that expand upon imagery drawn from printed materials through imagination and association. Their installations are characterized by an interplay of materials and motifs, creating narrative connections between individual pieces.
“Whle we get our ideas by seeing and touching things around us. reseachers at KEK deal with a reality of which mechanisms we cannot recognize. We are thrilled to see chemical reactions that will occur at the intersection of small ideas and higher-dimensional concepts,” they say.
“Mini Exhibition” (open to the public)
While most of the KEK AiR 2025 program is open only to KEK-affiliated individuals, the “Mini Exhibition” where a selection of past works will be on display welcomes the public.
It takes place on Saturday, April 19, and from Wednesday, April 23, to Friday, May 9, between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. The exhibition’s opening day, April 19, will coincide with KEK’s Spring Campus Open House.
Contact
KEK PR Office
1-1 Oho, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0801
Phone：029-879-6048
E-mail: proffice@kek.jp